Saturday, November 14, 2009

CMA: After Hours w/ Sheer Frost Orchestra and Eats Tapes)

Friday evening the Cleveland Museum of Art opened a companion exhibition to the Gauguin show featuring ten works by students at the Cleveland Institute of Art-- the opening also featured works by Sheer Frost Orchestra and Eats Tapes.

In three parts:The Art, CIA Students: Cleveland 2009:I would suggest that anyone attending the Museum first walk through the gallery and just enjoy the art then read the exhibition book and go through again... Most of the pieces are interesting in one way or another, though I think my favorite concept was either Exchange Rate or 10' x 8' x 100. Operator and Spectator is just kind of fun and Standard Shipping Error is a sort of whimsical look at what could have been if, I suppose, Gauguin's work had been trusted to a shipping company en route to it's exhibition.

Sheer Frost Orchestra: The concept is certainly unusual-- 17 electric guitars played lying flat on the ground using bottles of nail polish the connection between performer and instrument. The sound created could only be described as ethereal, and the one or two occasions where something resembling a "normal" electric guitar sound was heard seemed aberrant. I'm not sure which was worse, however: The people carrying on relative loud conversations in the gallery during the performance or the unidentified woman who made not one but two announcements about the same.

Eats Tapes: I love the name of this duo; it took me a few minutes to get warmed up to electronic sound but wow. Interesting sounds and rhythms literally pulsating through the building -- I'm pretty sure the curators will notice some seismic activity in the East wing. Had the lights been turned off in the Key Bank Lobby, the scene outside of the Gauguin galleries would have been largely indistinguishable from a nightclub... some interesting and organic dancing with a fantastically diverse crowd from somewhere around 18 up.